We have cloned a novel hematopoietic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF)-induced olfactomedin-related glycoprotein, termed hGC-1 (human G-CSF-stimulated clone-1). mRNA differential display was used in conjunction with a modified two-phase liquid culture system. Cultures were enriched for early precursors of erythroid, myeloid, and megakaryocytic lineages, which were isolated after induction with erythropoietin, G-CSF, and thrombopoietin, respectively. RNA from the enriched cells was subjected to differential display analysis to identify lineage-specific expressed genes. Human GC-1 (hGC-1) is a novel olfactomedin-like glycoprotein that is expressed during granulocytic differentiation. To further characterize the function of GC-1, we have cloned the cDNA for the mouse homologue of human GC-1 and investigated the pattern of GC-1 gene expression in the mouse during embryonic development and in adult tissues. Genomic and cDNA clones corresponding to mouse GC-1 (mGC-1) were isolated. The mGC-1 protein shares 93% homology with hGC-1 at the amino acid level. The protein sequence of mGC-1 indicates that it belongs to the olfactomedin-related glycoprotein family, which includes olfactomedin, TIGR, NOELIN-2 and latrophilin-1. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to map the mGC-1 gene locus to chromosome 14D3. Like other olfactomedin-like genes with tissue-restricted patterns of expression, mGC-1 is expressed at high levels in the small intestine and kidney, at moderate levels in the stomach, thymus, spleen, and no expression was detected in brain, heart, liver or lung. These results are consistent with the distribution of hGC-1 in human tissues. Analysis of mGC-1 expression by in situ hybridization in mouse embryos showed that mGC-1 is not expressed until day E15. mGC-1 expression was detected in the small intestine and stomach. Interestingly, a very clear demarcation of the mGC-1 signal was evident in the intestine, where mGC-1 was specifically expressed between the enterocytes lining the villi, but not in the lamina propria or in the muscularis layers. There was a similar, albeit weaker, pattern of mGC-1 expression in stomach. On further analysis, we find high level expression of mGC-1 in pro-B and pre-B cells and low-level expression in mature B and T-cells that co-localizes in this region of the small intestine. When the myeloid progenitor 32D cell line was exposed to G-CSF for 7 days, mGC-1 expression was induced. Taken together, these results suggest that mGC-1 play an important role in granulocytic differentiation, and quite likely in mucousal immunity.